Trustee Visit Jan/Feb 2024
Martyn and Mandy Kemp, two of our trustees are visiting Rwanyana in January and February 2024 to support with project delivery.
January 22nd
Departure
Trustees Martyn and Mandy Kemp, are flying to Kigali, Rwanda and then travelling to Rwanyana, Uganda to visit Rwanyana Community Project. It will be lovely to meet up again with Spencer and Peninah who manage the project, Brenda, the community nurse and all the members and recipients of our charity work. We will be reporting on how the charity’s funds have been spent and supporting them with various activities. Watch this space for news of the project and highlights of our trip!
January 23rd & 24th
Kigali to Rwanyana
We flew to Kigali, Rwanda, Rwanyana is near to the border between Rwanda and Uganda. This is our first visit to Rwanda but the architecture of the buildings and the number of people dressed in bright colours walking around were immediately familiar. Rwanda seems a cleaner, more organised version of its east African neighbours of Uganda and Tanzania.
After a day exploring Kigali we were picked up from our guest house by Innocent who helped us negotiate the border crossing by convincing the guards that it would be a waste of time to search our luggage. Glad we didn’t have to explain the many pairs of glasses, menstrual cups, tools and other interesting items we had.
After a stop in Kabale for provisions we headed to the village. The bumpy, steep ‘road’ seemed to go on and on. Sadly, we passed field after field of crops destroyed by the recent heavy rain showing us how climate change is affecting the region. At last we reached the homestead of project managers Spencer and Peninah where the hostel children gave us a joyful song and dance. So glad to be back to Rwanyana. Work starts tomorrow!
Tea plantation in Rwanda
Crops destroyed by heavy rains
Welcome from the children at the hostel
January 25th
Special Needs Session
Thursday is the day the special needs group meets. The parents and children were happy to see us and greeted us warmly. They thanked us for the support the charity gives (with a song and dance!). The special needs group was started last year to enable the parents with less abled children to meet and support each other and for the children to socialise and develop. In this society disabled children are often left at home with no opportunities to achieve their potential. It was heart-warming to see them laughing and having fun. After the session we sat in on the monthly clinic staff meeting where the staff discussed the previous months challenges and achievements. They also had a long list of suggestions of additional resources which would improve the special needs group. We’ll take them back to the charity!
In the evening we went for a walk and came across a young choir practicing outside the church in the fading light. They immediately sang louder for us. A nice end to the evening.
The special needs group
A song from the special needs group
The young choir
January 26th
IT Lesson
Spencer and Peninah have been very keen to move into the computer age for a while. Now electricity is often available and we have had a donation to buy a laptop, we have purchased and brought a second hand laptop for the project. They were very keen to start learning so this morning we started with how to use a mouse and basic functions of Word. They were excellent students and produced a table with the results of the Primary Leaving Exam which have just been published. Everyone is excited about the results which have shown another improvement with one student, Novence, gaining a grade 1, which is rare and the highest grade possible. Well done students!
On an evening stroll we came across some hostel children bringing home the harvest. It is school holidays and all the children have tasks. These children had dug up and carried the sweet potatoes from quite a way down the hillside. A boy was also keen for us to take his photo showing how he had illustrated his home!
Spencer & Peninah using their new laptop
Children bringing home the harvest
A local boy’s illustrated home
January 27th
Kilinju
The Kilinju (elderly persons) group is a monthly get together to help combat isolation, health issues and poverty. On arrival nurses Brenda and Juliet take blood pressures and address other health issues. After that, the group sing, dance and also get the opportunity to discuss their health problems in the group. The group receive a snack of a bread roll and local porridge drink and receive salt and soap. We were treated to thank you songs and joined in the farewell jumping dance! This is funded by some monthly donations and it was heart-warming to see the Kilinju enjoying the get together.
Brenda and Juliet doing the health checks
Meal time at the Kilinju group
A thank you song and farewell dance
January 28th
Lessons
This morning we invited Spencer and Peninah for a ‘power breakfast’ before our finance meeting. Mandy showed them how we make pancakes which they loved.
Later in the day two lovely young women, Shania and Linnet, joined Mandy in the guest house to practice their English. They were very interested in the world so we continued onto geography. It was amazing how much Linnet knew given she has no access to the internet. She said she spends her school breaks looking at maps in the library.
In the evening four younger children joined us to try out some of the games we have brought. They enjoyed playing animal dominoes.
Pancakes with Spencer & Peninah
Shania and Linnet practising English
Playing animal dominoes
January 29th
Novence Patience
Today we visited the home of Novence Patience. There is much excitement in the area because Patience graduated from Bevan Community school with the highest score ever achieved in the sub county. She now dreams of going to secondary school and would like to be a teacher. She is not a sponsored child but has been allowed to attend Bevan school free due to her extremely poor home circumstances. Her house was very poor with a dirt floor and the outside kitchen was almost falling down. The father of the family is absent in his children’s lives which is not unusual in this area. We are amazed at what she has achieved with such a difficult home life. Patience and her 5 younger siblings must work in the family’s vegetable plot after school to enable them to survive. The charity would really love Patience to continue her education so we are looking for sponsorship for her.
If you or someone you know would be interested in supporting Patience to continue her education, you can contact us here to discuss.
Patience’s family home
Patience and her family (Patience is second from the left)
The outside kitchen
January 30th
Eye Testing
Recently, a sponsored girl informed us that she hadn’t achieved as well as she would like due to her eye sight. It is noticeable that no one wears glasses here, including at the elderly persons group, contrasting sharply with the UK. This is because glasses would be totally unaffordable to the vast majority.
We have brought glasses before but this time we managed to collect 113 pairs! Even better, our local optician assessed about half of them for their prescription, so we had a starting point. Thank you, Lorraine Bonete! After downloading the charts and learning how to assess from the internet, we set to work practising and assessing. It was a hit and miss affair but after trying on a number of pairs we had some very satisfied customers. Next week Bevan school starts its new term so we will be asking the teachers to identify children who are struggling to see.
The communities’ first ever eye tests
Shania trying on some new glasses
A satisfied customer
February 1st
Smart Babies
The Ladies of Stannington WI have recently started to sponsor a little girl, Katusiime Claire. The group kindly collected some glasses for us to take and also some of the ladies knitted baby clothes to give to needy children. We distributed some at the special needs group and to some local families. The mothers were thrilled and after a photo shoot removed them so they could keep them clean for church on Sunday. Everyone is impressed by the skilled hand knitting on show and have requested that the Ladies of Stannington WI come to show them how it is done!
Fashionable babies
This little girl performed a jumping dance
A happy mother
February 2nd
Menstrual Cups
On a previous visit we have brought over menstrual cups for the older girls and women in the community. The women cannot afford to buy sanitary pads and it is very difficult to dry homemade pads in the damp mountain air. These have been well received in the community. This year we have funded 80 cups for distribution. Here is Martyn presenting the cups to Nurse Juliet.
The view from the guest house is beautiful. Trees, terraced hillsides with glimpses of Lake Bunyoni in the bottom of the valley. Often, we are above the cloud which settles in the valley. The hillsides on the other side of the lake are varying shades of blue grey and sometimes you can see a volcano on the Rwandan, DRC & Ugandan border in the distance. However, the most striking thing to me are the sounds. You can hear soft people sounds coming from all different parts of the valley. There could be singing, children playing and just the general buzz of people living their lives outdoors.
Martyn & Nurse Juliet
The valley
A volcano in the background
February 4th
Sunday Visitors
This is a Christian area and almost all of the community will attend church on Sunday and dress up in the best outfits they can muster. We can hear the loud preaching and exuberant singing from our accommodation. The morning starts with drums announcing that it is time for the church. There seem to be a number of different services all lasting hours. I was told one was for the youth who are leaving the village tomorrow to start the new year at their boarding schools. We were visited today by Banet. He brought us a basket of potatoes (here they are called ‘Irish’) to say thank you for his sponsorship. Banet has just graduated from Bevan Community School and is joining technical school next week to study BCP (Bricklaying and concrete practice). Other visitors were Amira, the daughter of Spencer and Peninah and nurses Brenda and Juliet.
Banet with his gift
Amira
Brenda and Juliet in their church outfits
February 5th
New School Year!
The school year in Uganda runs from February to December and today was the first day of the new term. The morning was stormy and cold for the new arrivals. They all gathered along with some parents in the covered assembly area where Peninah sat with her registration book. Eventually the school day began and the children gathered on the field to sing some welcome songs. It was lovely to see the school in operation again and the children playing happily. We have brought along letters from some of our sponsors. Adore and Linet helpfully translated where needed. The children where very interested in the lives of their sponsors and the pictures they had sent. They send their thanks.
First assembly
The school site
Children receiving letters from sponsors
February 6th
School meals
One of the things we pride ourselves on is endeavouring to feed the children at school. The meals consist of morning porridge, which is a drink make from maize meal, and a lunch of posho (maize meal paste), a bean stew and cabbage. This can often be the only food the children get that day and you could see how happy they were on the first day of school. Feeding all the children is a hard task, the cook, Kenneth, was being helped by Aggrey, one of the young people waiting to go back to technical school.
Morning porridge
Lunch is served
The school kitchen
February 7th
Post primary school
There is much excitement as the post primary children are getting ready to go to their various boarding institutions. The charity is now supporting 15 young people who are progressing through sponsorship and our fundraising. Whilst this increases the pressure on the Bevan School budget we feel that continuing to support children who have achieved well is essential to our aim of education delivering improvements to the community.
The first stage is taking the young people to Kabale, the nearest town, for their shopping. Some of them have never been beyond the village before and were amazed by the number of cars and the small supermarket. They squashed into 2 cars that miraculously held 7 people each and many items. They came back late at night still excited from their trip.
Well loaded transport
Ready to go to school
Esther is ready
February 8th
The Hostel
What we call ‘the hostel’ is really an annex to Spencer and Peninah’s home. For many years they have taken in children who are orphans or have nowhere to stay due to family breakup. Currently there are 24 children in the hostel, 11 of which are sponsored. The hostel functions as one big family with Spencer, Peninah, their children and the hostel children all sharing chores and eating together. The lives of children are very different in rural Uganda to ones in the west. All children in this area work in the fields in the school holidays and at weekends. They also have other chores at home. The hostel children have their own allocated tasks which ensures the smooth running of the hostel. Some will be cooking in the outside kitchen, others will wash up, clean floors, wash clothes and tend animals. After chores are done though you can hear the children laughing, playing and singing. This often goes on until late at night in the school holidays. It is evident that the hostel children have a good life, they are well fed and happy.
Doreen on washing up duty
Linnet & Esther cooking in the hostel
New hostel latrines and washing facilities
February 9th
Thrashing the beans
When walking nearby we often come across people tending their crops or grazing animals. Everything is done by hand here and at the moment one of the main activities is thrashing the beans. The beans have been left to dry on the plants and then all the plants are taken down and people thrash the pile to release the beans. We came across this group of people clearly enjoying each others company whilst they worked. The men were thrashing and the women were sat podding the beans. Unfortunately, we were told the harvest is only 25% of the norm this year, a real blow for the people. Food preparation and cooking is labour intensive as everything is prepared from scratch and cooked over charcoal or wood fires. Here is Adore, Spencer and Peninah’s daughter preparing green banana for cooking later. The hostel kitchen has recently been renovated with new woodburning fire pits and a new roof.
Bean thrashing
Preparing green banana
The hostel kitchen
February 10th
Guest House
What we call the ‘guest house’ is a wooden cabin where the volunteers stay. It is comfortable with a living and kitchen area, two bedrooms, a washing area and a veranda overlooking the spectacular valley and lake Bunyoni. We have a two ring cooker but also cook on a charcoal burner on the veranda. This also acts as a outdoor heater when sitting out on the chilly evenings. On some evenings we have visits from small groups of hostel children to play games or practice their English. In the evening Martyn held a finance meeting with Spencer and Peninah. The main focus was the school budget for this year. We have increased pressure due to supporting the post primary students and rising food prices. 20% (approximately £6000) of this year’s budget will be provided by the fundraising we did last year using up our existing reserves. This means we will need raise a similar amount again this year to be ready for 2025. A daunting
task.
Martyn cooking on the veranda
Evening games with young hostel people
Finance meeting
February 10th contd.
At the beginning of term many students arrive without uniform. We do provide it for sponsored children but we also have a number of ‘needy’ children who attend free and need uniform provided. A few years ago we provided 2 sewing and a knitting machine. Here is Adrine making school sweaters and Betty sewing dresses. Betty is just starting her second year at technical college for design and dressmaking. She is proud of her work and has ambitions to own her own business one day.
Making school sweaters
Betty sewing school dresses
Children looking smart in their uniform
February 11th
Goodbyes
After a busy and incredibly rewarding 3 weeks in the village it is time to leave. After hugs from the hostel children and promises to return we set off with our driver, Innocent. We had been invited to ‘pass by’ Justus’ (nurse Brenda’s husband) family home and greet him and his parents. ‘Pass by’ means that we will be provided with food and gifts. Mama Justus gave us a handcrafted pot and we ate rice, potatoes, chicken and fruit. A nice end to the trip.
Mama Justus presenting her pot
Group goodbye
Goodbye from Peninah
A note
Please be assured that all trustee and supporter expenses on any visits are self funded. All charity fundraising is spent on the project activities in the village. We absolutely love our working holidays in Rwanyana. If anyone is interested in visiting our project then we are happy to discuss. We finished our trip off with three nights in a lodge on the shores of Lake Ruhondo in Rwanda. On previous trips we have stayed on an island lodge in Lake Bunyoni, trekked to see gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest or just relaxed in the White Horse, the best hotel in Kabale.
The New Daniel’s Clinic
The new clinic building looks great. They get a steady stream of patients and Nurse Brenda is currently in the process of registering it as a level 2 clinic. This will allow them to provide more services. Brenda has now been joined by Nurse Juliet allowing the clinic to be covered most of the time.
The new clinic
The waiting room
Mandy with Brenda and Juliet